Three Oxford post-graduate students became record breakers this summer after swimming across the 22km Gibraltar Strait in just 3 hours and 38 minutes.
Lennard Lee, Harry Fisher and Nicholas Berry conquered the mammoth swim in July in an effort to raise money for the Variety Club, a charity for disabled and disadvantaged Children.
Celebrity swimmers David Walliams and James Cracknell had swum the Strait in March this year. The Oxford team beat Walliams’ and Cracknell’s time by almost an hour.
Gibraltar-based law firm Marrache & Co. offered sponsorship to the Oxford team after being impressed by their determination and commitment – financial aid which helped the swimmers raise over £1,600. The Olympic athlete Duncan Goodhew, a long-time supporter of the Variety Club, also lent his support, describing the swim as ‘an incredible achievement’, and joined the International Vice President for the Variety Club, Ronnie Nathan, in praising the team’s commitment to the challenge.
Lee, Fisher and Berry had to dodge strong currents, busy shipping lanes and killer whales to cross the Strait, a notoriously dangerous stretch of water which has only ever been swum by 200 people. Lennard Lee, who studies Medicine at Queen’s College, said that the difficulty involved was an attraction for the swimmers: “We enjoy challenges and this was a big one. The winds and waves are unpredictable and strong. You need to be a competent swimmer to do it.”
Teddy Hall postgraduate Harry Fisher, a Material Sciences student, described how the trio had been aware of large black objects near them in the water as they neared the end of the swim. The team decided to ignore the objects and keep swimming, but were told when they reached the African shore that they had been followed by a pack of five killer whales.
Lee said, ‘Our pilot boatman told us they were circling us for about thirty minutes, getting closer and closer. If they had got any closer, they would have had to pull us out for our own safety.’
But Lee’s team was not the only group of Oxford students battling across the Gibraltar Strait this summer. In August, a second group took part in a relay crossing to raise £6,150 for the World Cancer Research Fund, a cancer-awareness charity that promotes preventative information about the disease.
St John’s postgraduate student Ginger Turner helped put together a team consisting of James Briaris, Ginger Turner, Emma Penn, Nate Singer, Darek Nehrebecki and Nicholas Staubach. Although their challenge was intended as a relay, in which each member of the team would swim a particular length of the Strait, Emma Penn swam all 22km in four hours and thirty-five minutes, an achievement in itself which was a minute faster than the Walliams and Cracknell record.
The team said that they chose to raise money for the World Cancer Research Fund as they felt it was a cause they could all relate to, especially as each member of the team has lost friends or relatives to cancer. Engineering student James Briaris felt particularly motivated to tackle the Strait after witnessing the mother of a close friend lose her life to stomach cancer five years ago. Briaris said he felt more research into cancer prevention was needed to help other patients and their families.
Emma Penn commented, ‘I received a phone call from Dariusz Nehrebecki (a St John’s graduate), who informed me that one of the other St John’s grads, Ginger Turner, was thinking about putting a team together to do an ‘extreme’ sporting event for charity. He knew that I was an experienced swimmer and asked if I was interested, so I agreed on the spot!’
The second Oxford team also had their fair share of anxious moments. Penn recalled losing her team-mates halfway across the Strait, ‘My goggles were completely useless and they were covered in grease, so I couldn’t see a thing. After taking them off, I looked around and couldn’t see any of the other swimmers behind me, or the guide boat in front – this is when it really dawned on me that I was all on my own in the ocean.’
Penn also described the frustration she, like the Variety Club team, experienced during the last few minutes of the swim. ‘I had visions of swimming to a beautiful beach in Morocco and feeling complete elation. However, it was rather different in the end. The last 1.5 km really hurt and I started to feel angry; the shore line just didn’t seem to be coming any closer.’
The experience did not, however, put the team off completely the challenge again. Emma spoke for the whole team when she described their feelings after successfully crossing the Strait, ‘We had a team celebration upon returning to Spain, and only then did it start to sink in how well we had all done. I’m so grateful that I was given this opportunity and I’m so proud of the whole team. I’d do it again with them any day.’
